


i will love you on purpose (& i will make myself miserable on purpose, too)

by mag003 (MMagpieMcCorkle)



Series: magpie's olivergraham collection (working title) [5]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: <- this is short but Please take care, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Canon, Short One Shot, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:04:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27170117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MMagpieMcCorkle/pseuds/mag003
Summary: Double duty bound: staying alive for someone else and sometimes yourself, and the bleakness of treading water every single day.
Relationships: Oliver Banks/Graham Folger
Series: magpie's olivergraham collection (working title) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760566
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	i will love you on purpose (& i will make myself miserable on purpose, too)

**Author's Note:**

> cw: very frank and bluntly discussed suicidal thoughts/ideation & mental health issues for both graham and oliver, as well as mentioned parent death and cancer. also nihilistic (?maybe?) thoughts throughout that really do feed into the suicidal ideation, so please take care before reading this if any of this could trigger you. this is pretty much a vent piece, i guess (if you could call it that)?

When Oliver's mum's death date creeps up (middle of sunny May, smack-bang centre when it starts to become swelter weather), they always talk about going up north to visit her grave, and sometimes they do on the very day, and if they don't they go the week after when there's time to do so (time to prepare). Adrian never wants to go, preferring to actually do something like visit his sister who is still alive and thriving and will be so for many, many years to come. Oliver understands, and wants to take that step that looks like it's facing forward, but he misses his mum so much. Would he trade someone else for her? He used to think he would. _If only it were possible!_ he used to think, used to _beg_ whatever might be listening to his locked-tight private thoughts. If only it were possible to save her from illness and the inevitable death.

Funny thing about death: it's inevitable for everyone.

* * *

Oliver doesn't consider himself suicidal, really. He's not really thought so much about his own death as that of others -- his mum, his dad, his aunt, his grandparents, his teachers, his friends, his various colleagues, and, more than he really wants to, Graham. Because Graham is _definitely_ suicidal in a near-constant "treading water" sort of way, a "well it is what it is and it's pretty shit, mostly" sort of way.

Good days, of course, yes, they exist, when it's like the abysmal knowledge of inevitability can be shrugged off because something good has happened, like having a day off work or catching up with Anahita and Lucille or spending his time with his dad.

But there's other days where it is so overwhelmingly inevitable, the end of _everything_ \-- the terrifying idea that he and Graham would be split apart, somehow, even if they're both still alive. If Graham dies before him, for whatever reason. If Dad dies alone in their old house and no neighbour checks in on him. A train wreck. A murder. An unchecked medical condition.

* * *

It's a weird comfort, knowing someone who knows the same loss. A taking of turns of looking after the other on Bad Anniversaries. A real understanding of that cleaving grief: that it -- Lauren's cancer, Desmond and Samantha's crash -- is something that they can never get over. The understanding that time, and reality, only ever goes forward.

"Bit fucking shit, to be honest," Graham says, his hand scratching at a faint scar hidden under his shirt and sweatshirt.

"Very fucking shit," Oliver says, his hand knuckling at the aching pit in the middle of his chest that travels up to his throat.

* * *

Sometimes they dance a little. No unbearably sad songs, that's Oliver's rule, and it's mostly old songs anyway that they sway to for the sake of reminding themselves that there is something worth clinging to while alive. "It's not all shit" is the message of the gentle sway. Something, someone to cling to; it's not always enough to be for a singular self, alone.

"I love you." Graham means a whole lot more that Oliver knows well by now: I love you more than I could ever love myself. I love you more than there are words in any language. I love you enough to tell you anything, eventually.

Always that "eventually".

"I love you too," is muffled into the side of his neck.

**Author's Note:**

> this is so... :/ bit shit tbh. i mean it was a quick wham-bam Yikes "Piece" but :/ mmm. won't be cross-posting this one, lol -_-


End file.
